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Music panel advocates a bigger venue for acts

Published: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 at 9:04 p.m.

Last Modified: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 at 9:04 p.m.

While playing up the health of Wilmington's music industry Tuesday night, a panel made a public appeal for a venue of about 5,000 seats.

"The beauty of the Wilmington music scene is the guys who are in it – the bands, the players – for this community, we have an astounding number of musicians," said Richard Leder, executive director of the Brooklyn Arts Center.

About 80 people attended the "Tunes in Town: The Business of Music in the Cape Fear" panel hosted at Satellite Bar and Lounge, 120 Greenfield St., by the Cape Fear Economic Development Council. John Staton, the StarNews' features editor, moderated the event.

Beau Gunn, program and music director for The Penguin, said Wilmington could have seen acts such as The Black Crowes and Widespread Panic recently if a larger venue had been available.

"(They) certainly would have come here if we had the ability to house them. We just don't," Gunn said, pointing to the success of the Avett Brothers and Lynyrd Skynyrd concerts as a template for what he'd like to see on a more permanent basis.

Chris Lee, who owns Pipeline Event Management, often finds himself hosting events across the Cape Fear River rather than in downtown Wilmington because of the lack of viable larger venues.

The downside of that, though, is Lee spends about $50,000 on logistics or has to skip acts altogether.

"We get phased out because we don't have the infrastructure in place to accommodate them," he said.

The panel then fielded a question about whether the construction of such a venue should be funded with public or private money.

Lee said he'd prefer it be privately funded so there would be wiggle room on guidelines such as how much profit the owner would take in from alcohol sales. At the same time, though, the priority would be to have such a venue.

"At this point, if it meant some common ground, some meeting in the middle, then I'd be all about (the city building it)," he said. "I'd rather have to deal with some extra issues than to not deal with any issues at all."

James Ethan Clark, a Wilmington musician who was on the panel, made public his plans to host a music festival in the Cape Fear region next year. Clark and his father, Jeff, plan on hosting Sonorous, a Hopscotch-like festival on Nov. 7-8, 2014, featuring 70 bands at various venues downtown.

Large venue or not, supporting music in the region – be it local, regional or national acts – isn't that hard, according to the panel.

"What do you need for support?" Leder said. "And the answer is people to come. You need people to come and buy a few beers and enjoy themselves."